


Monogram

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Backstory, F/M, Letters, Marriage, Middle Names, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6450892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the "Not words, not music or rhyme" universe, Jed signed a letter "Jedediah Thurmond Foster" but all of Mary's letters are signed Mary Phinney. Does she have a middle name? This is my version of 5 times I couldn't decide on a middle name for Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monogram

**Author's Note:**

> This is for anyone who keeps lists of their favorite names, on paper or in your head, whether or not you have children, for people who love searching for the right name for the character, and for people who love backstories.

“You know, when you signed your letters, you always signed them Mary Phinney, even when I used my full name. Do you not have a middle name?” Jed asked as he idly twirled her hair, a shining skein in the morning light…

1\. Lucretia

“Mary Lucretia.”

“How did you come by that name?”

“It was my father. He was a lawyer by profession, but what he really loved was reading the classics. He read both Latin and Greek and tried to teach all of us; the Latin we made progress, especially George with all the Caesar, military treatises, but the Greek was more complex and none of us ever made much headway. If I ever dared complain about the name, my mother reminded me she’d stopped him from using his first choice, Calpurnia. I can remember him, setting aside his briefs at night and smiling as he pulled over the leather covered books I’d puzzled over when I tried to read them. I think he wished to stay at Harvard and teach but the farm needed him and the law was steady.”

2\. Abigail

“Mary Abigail.”

“Well, that sounds like a good Yankee name.”

“It was my mother’s and my grandmother’s, though my father mostly called her Abby. There are Abigails all the way back in the family Bible. My sister Caroline and I liked to open it up and look at the names, the ink getting fainter and fainter, seeing the Abigails stretching back, all the way across the ocean to England. Caroline’s middle name was Brooks and she was always jealous I was the Abigail of our generation.”

3\. Bronwen

“Mary Bronwen.”

“Bron-wen? What name is that?”

“It’s Welsh. My great-grandmother was Welsh, from the country near Cardiff I think. It means “white breast” or “fair breast” my mother said. I never met my great-grandmother but my mother said she was very fair, tall, even as an old woman. She couldn’t read or write English and she never taught any of her children any Welsh, so all we have left of her are her name, a few memories, and some half-remembered lullabies.”

“Well, it suits you.”

4\. Elizabeth

“Is this truly important to you?”

“Well, I don’t know that I would say it is important, but I am curious. Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but I don’t want to distress you—“

“Well, now I am both curious and concerned.”

“It’s Elizabeth, Mary Elizabeth.”

“Oh.”

“It is a very common name but we have been so happy and tranquil this morning, I hated to bring up something that might bring you pain.”

“You worry too much about me. It is your name, a lovely name.”

“I have never been called Eliza,” a pause, “but at home, my mother often called me Bess and my brother George still does. His children call me Aunt Bess more than Aunt Mary. Caroline, my sister, didn’t and Joe and Mattie call me Aunt Mary. Caroline had a lisp growing up and Bess became Beth and George would laugh at her, so she started refusing and only called me Mary. I was glad of it since our neighbors had a milch cow they called Bess and I hated sharing my name with the neighbor’s cow.”

“I think I shall still call you Mary. But Bess may be hard to resist, if you are ever in a temper.”

5\. Esther

“Mary Esther.”

“A Bible name then.”

“Yes, my mother’s father was a minister and she said they spent every Sunday after service sitting in the parlor, with only the Bible to read, or the clouds to watch. My mother’s favorite was the book of Ruth, she always said she loved it for Ruth’s loyalty and trust, the homeliness of it with a harvest and simple people. She said the story of Queen Esther was about palaces and intrigue, those hanging gardens, was altogether too bold a story though it was exciting. Caroline’s middle name was Ruth and when I was born, she tried to get my father to call me Mary Rachel or Mary Deborah. My father was a lawyer, so I think she imagined he would agree at least to Deborah since she was a judge, but she said when I was born, he looked at me and said I was a little queen and only Esther would do.”

“I think he was prescient then, to pick the name of the brave, bold queen. But I too spent long Sundays with only the Bible or the plantation’s accounting to entertain me, so I recall Queen Esther and I think you have forgotten how she humbled herself, risked all for her people. In any case, you are the queen of my heart.”

“I think you are lovesick.”

“I think you are adorable.”


End file.
